1000 (apocryphal) Words
by iRamble
Summary: So Sam has developed a slight fanfiction reading habit. Bit odd, but he can justify it (honest). But then something he reads gets stuck in his head & leads him to giving Dean an unusual gift, safe in the knowledge that he's truly the master of his own fate…. right guys?... right? Fanfiction-ception anyone? SPOILER/tag for Season7; Episode 12 'Time After Time' – pure fluff… COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**SPOILERS** : tag for ' _Time After Time_ ' – Season 7; Episode 12 | minor reference to events in prior seasons | minor reference to a conversation in Season 9; Episode 4 (' _Slumber Party_ ')

 **AN** : This is pure indulgence while I struggle to get other fics started/completed. In two parts, 2nd part will be uploaded very soon (no later than next week).

 **DEDICATIONS** : To all the awesome writers out there who keep us all entertained and who I can't believe are so good and yet not getting paid to do this! Sometimes I can't believe how talented you all are (No. No, I'm not jealous. Not at all… nuh-uh….)

Also, thanks again to Wiki-keepers, and my beta.

 **Disclaimer** : _All characters appearing in Supernatural are copyright Kripke/CW/WB etc. No infringement of these copyrights is intended. This fanfic is my original work of fiction based on those characters/that universe_

 **Part I**

"… Sammy, where….? Where'd you _get_ this?... I mean Hell! How'd you even _think_ to get it?"

 _That_ was not something Sam was willing to discuss. As he stood there watching Dean, he couldn't supress the involuntary shudder and succession of squirms that rippled through him, and was glad that Dean was too engrossed in that moment with the gift held in his hands to have noticed his discomfort. Discomfort that all stemmed from the answer to those very questions Dean had reflexively and rhetorically just asked; how Sam had gotten it; how it had even occurred to him to get it.

No. _That_ was something Sam definitely wasn't willing to broach.

Ever.

Because _that_ entailed disclosing the truth, and the truth was something almost abhorrent, even to Sam and _he_ was the one who'd actually consciously committed the act. God only knew how _Dean_ would react if he ever found out.

Sam shuddered again, as if hoping to shake the truth away from himself and hide it under a rug, unseen.

Because the truth was that sometimes, very, very rarely, in quiet, secret, private moments snatched in between hunts or during downtime, when Dean was asleep or in the shower or otherwise out painting whatever town they were in at the time some dubious, hormonally charged shade of scarlet, Sam Winchester would surreptitiously and stealthily and oh so self-consciously, undertake a scan of Supernatural fanfiction.

He would never, ever admit this of course, his dirty little secret, not to anyone. Not under pain of death or torture by psychotic British women or even forced re-admittance into Lucifer's cage, not out loud and actually barely even in his own head. And certainly not to _Dean_. God! No. Never.

But he could justify it, in case he got caught, could rationalise it if needed, and did so in fact on a regular basis, if only to console and convince himself that he was vindicated in what he was doing. His reasoning was actually almost airtight.

It had been a simple thought, one he couldn't refute once it had embedded itself into his mind and it was simply this; what if, somewhere out there, lost in the ocean of wannabe writers wading and drowning in leagues of fandom, there was another Carver Edlund, another Chuck Shurley. In other words, another 'Prophet of the Lord', putting pen to paper, or fingers to keys, and churning out oracular visions every bit as accurate and revealing and prophetic as Chucks had been, but not realising, much like Chuck hadn't, that these weren't merely flights of fancy, but actually highly accurate retellings of Sam and Dean's life. Some apocryphal continuation of the Winchester Gospels. And for that matter, hadn't Charlie indicated as much? In a roundabout sort of way hinting that there was fanfiction about Chuck's books already out there? Meaning, reading between the lines, there was fanfiction about Sam and Dean.

And as much as that thought had made Sam squirm and cringe and want to scrub himself clean with peroxide and holy water and enough salt to burn the skin clean off from his bones, it was still a thought he couldn't ignore because the more it swam in his head, the more rationale it amassed and the more plausible it seemed, until he couldn't dismiss it as outlandish or stupid anymore. If another prophet _was_ writing about them, was getting visions and prophecies about their future (or even their present and recent past), then surely to the writer it would simply seem like an expression of fandom, dedicated to the series Chuck had brought into a shady corner of the public's eye. That being the case, where else would this newfound prophet possibly share their work, other than on a fan site?

He hadn't wanted to delve into those sites of course. But his motivation for scouring and scanning and obsessively hunting for material had stemmed from that genuine and legitimate concern, one that had lit in his mind that night, out of the blue, and had since grown like an out of control wildfire, one that no amount of ignorance had been able to sate.

So after resisting for as long as he could have done, Sam had reluctantly and somewhat apprehensively taken a deep breath and dived headfirst into this strange and, from his perspective, somewhat 'self-obsessed' world. At first it had been hugely difficult for him to navigate his way around. The subject matter of course took away any sense of unbiased feelings because he really didn't want to uncover what all those crazed obsessed fans had to say about him and his brother. And the disclaimers! They always irritated him the hell out of him, every single time: he was damn well sure he wasn't a copyright property of any damn person or company ( _seriously?_ ). And God! Of course he never, ever, wanted to read any of that slash material, he avoided _that_ at all costs.

But still, even though he did it, and even though he felt he had a damned good reason for doing it, he would never, _ever_ admit any of it, still did it like it something illicit and slightly illegal, feeling guilty and dirty the whole while he was there. Felt unspeakably dirty after the fact as well. It would almost be easier and less embarrassing to get caught watching Casa Erotica than to be revealed doing _this_. And (and this was the thing he was most uncomfortable about), after a while he'd actually begun to… well, maybe not _enjoy_ exactly, he couldn't bring himself to acknowledge that, but… appreciate perhaps, that would be the right adjective. He'd begun to _appreciate_ some of the things he read, begun to acknowledge that not all of the works made him squirm uncomfortably or roll his eyes. In fact sometimes they gave him a new found insight to the inner workings of those closest to him, including, weirdly and disturbingly (or should that be alarmingly?), himself. And if they sometimes got his inner demons, his doubts and fears oh so terrifyingly right, sometimes he couldn't help but wonder, especially when he was sat next to Dean during those long silent moonlit drives into the night, sneaking glances when he thought his brother wouldn't notice, were some of those insights as terrifyingly accurate about Dean as well?

If they were, he had no idea what to do with that information. Some of it was to be expected; the fact that Dean had self-worth issues, that Dean felt abandoned and betrayed and desperately needed to be loved by his family. But some of emotional baggage, some of the hurt, the depth of insight that some writers somehow dug out, the strange glimpses into moments from his brother's perspective that they etched and carved so accurately well, if it was true then well, Sam didn't know how to feel about that level of emotional complexity and pain in his brother.

But all these pseudo-psycho-semi-begrudged-appreciation-induced-introspective revelations and ponderings didn't make any of it feel any less sordid or lowly, and he still loathed every time he knew he had privacy to do it once more. He persisted however, ignoring his discomfort, and over the course of some time he developed a reasonable system. Up to a certain point in his and Dean's life, events had been made public by Chuck's books, so that narrowed the net for his trawls somewhat. Anything to do with events up until and including the last event mentioned in the books on sale on Amazon, the ones Charlie had confirmed to be the unpublished works of Chuck and that had subsequently been published probably by Becky, he disregarded completely as well. Anything that was something in a distant future or alternate universe (or AU as it was termed), well how would he know if any of that was true or not? Not yet anyhow. So that just left him looking for stories dealing with events and cases similar to those they'd experienced since the events of the last 'unofficial' official book. Not that _that_ narrowed things down very much. And plus, he quickly learned that other than actual hunters, no one was more versed in hunting lore than fan( _atic_ )s.

It was on one of these illicit trawls that he came across _that_ story, the one that led him to where he was now, stood in front of Dean and hoping his brother wouldn't somehow guess the cause of his discomfort. The irony of it was, that the story, the one that had led him here, it hadn't really been particularly well written. He'd certainly read better works by better authors. But it had mentioned in the summary that the literal he had started reading fanfiction, which had obviously made Sam sit up a little straighter, setting off defcon 4, but certainly no more than that; he'd learned by now that his and Deans' reading or somehow 'watching' their lives wasn't in itself a unique theme within this fandom. But the story fit within his timeframe, so he'd indulged it, humoured it.

It was a throwaway fluff piece, inconsequential, forgettable, and in fact he couldn't even remember what it was called or who it was by, except that he remembered the word count didn't match the promise of the title and he'd thought that was kind of lame. But it was short enough for him to skim quickly, and the one or two reviews it had garnered were pleasant enough, if not a little over generous in his view but then, he reminded himself, who was he to judge what people found entertaining about his and Dean's imagined life.

The story began, if he remembered rightly, with Dean's reaction to some unknown gift, and he'd been curious. Not overly so of course, but just a little bit, just enough to want to know what the gift would be. So he skimmed ahead a little. Well, skimmed ahead a lot actually, only catching bits and pieces of inconsequential words, wouldn't have been truly surprised if no one else would bother get that far since, in his opinion, the author had a tendency to ramble a bit. And also, because it was one of those stories that was solely centred on him and his perspective, it had that peculiar effect of making him feel like his brain was being peeled away. It also still always felt strange to think that at the precise moment that he was reading something like that about himself, someone else was also somewhere else reading the same thing. About him. Someone else, somewhere else, was sat thinking, musing, or, god! _fantasising_ about _him_. It was just weird on all sorts of levels and it was those kinds of thoughts he hated when he did this kind of research, and this story in particular, despite his not even giving it his entire attention, was eliciting those feelings by the truckload.

So rather than laboriously read through it all, he scanned for the word 'gift' or 'present' instead, finding it eventually somewhere around 1.5K word mark (give or take 200), where the substance of the long drawn out two-parter was _finally_ revealed. Or rather and somewhat oddly, was completely spelt out. He wasn't a writer, but he knew enough about writing to know you didn't just do that, didn't just put the big reveal, with a sentence before explaining that _that_ was what you were about to do, in the middle of the freaking story for God's sake! But, amateur, hack writer; go figure.

The gift, as it turned out, revolved around the incident with Chronos, when Dean had been thrown back in time and had rode shotgun with Eliot Ness himself no less. The story had a simple premise and a simple plot; Sam finds candid photo of Dean and Ness together from Dean's time-travelling escapades. Sam gives said picture to Dean as a present. Fin.

He'd hummed at the premise, it was interesting, plausible even, if a bit mundane and inconsequential. The writer had even echoed as much, and he'd found that rather self-deprecating, a sentiment he was no stranger to now and again, so sympathised on some level. And to be honest, he hadn't even really read it beyond that eventual reveal, only skimmed the remainder and second part with half an eye at best, it was just a bit too introspective and self-involved for his palate (and besides, he knew damn well Dean was due back any second).

And anyway, nothing happened in the story, there were no monsters, no dire threats. Nothing to indicate any kind of prophetic visionary revelations from up on high.

So after the briefest of considerations, he'd moved on.

But then, a month or so later, the thought of the story resurfaced in his brain. He couldn't really say why. Perhaps because it was plausible. Perhaps because it had made him think about that time Dean had been gone, made him think about what Dean had done, back there in a time before either of them had existed. The idea that there could be a candid shot of Dean from that era, the idea that a photograph of Dean, out of time and there with Ness _could_ , theoretically exist, it _was_ plausible. Possible. Likely even, the more he thought about it. Ness had been, after all, such a celebrated figure in his time, what with public crime fighters like him being courted openly by the press in those days like modern day sports and reality stars. So in theory at least, in the time that Dean had been with Ness, there was a chance that some paparazzi somewhere may have taken a picture of them together. Slim, granted, but still a chance.

The thought kept persistently bouncing around in Sam's head, buzzing and festering, till it was like an itch he could no longer refuse, a mosquito in the helix of his ear. So he'd started a little scratch on the surface, an innocent little search of historical photo archives, the blessing being that Dean really hadn't been in that era very long at all, so the time frame on his search window was minute, not even a week. Nothing turned up initially but then after a while it occurred to him that perhaps, if a shot existed, it had been such a candid throwaway photo that it wouldn't even have made it to any newsprints. In that case, it really would be hidden away somewhere, possibly in a private collection or a historical society's archive.

And it was then that it occurred to Sam that perhaps he was fulfilling a prophetic vision. That didn't sit easy with him for a number of reasons, only one of which was that he couldn't for the life of him remember who had written the story or what it was exactly that had happened or how his 'character' had behaved, what the literal ' _he_ ' had done.

But he negated that thought. He was a man acting of his own free will, he felt sure of it. If the whole encounter with Chuck, the subsequent long drawn out and much prophesised would-be end-game with Michael and Lucifer, had proved anything, _anything_ , it was that he and Dean could choose and had chosen, had changed what was prophesised and written and believed for millennia. He and Dean were masters of their own kismet, their fate was their own to carve and make. For better or worse. They'd averted the Apocalypse, no matter what Chuck had originally prophesised or what any angel and demon had believed. God may have had a plan, but God had also given them free-will and damn it all to hell! he was doing this because _he_ wanted to, not because it was pre-ordained, and certainly not because some forgettable third rate never-be writer had scrawled a few lines about it in some subcultural vacuum sealed corner of the internet.

No.

Damnit, no.

He was in control of his actions and he knew exactly what action he would take next to get what he wanted.

So he contacted as many of the relevant historical societies as he could, both officially recognised and amateur run, and even some private collectors, and asked to look at any pictorial evidence that they had that might fit into his very specific temporal window. The lie to gain him entrance had tripped easily enough form his tongue, ( _my grandfather worked with Ness for a very short time, just one case actually, but he always talked about it… I was wondering if there'd be any chance there might be a photo lurking somewhere in your private collection of the two of them together? I know it's a long shot and I'm so sorry to take up any of your time but..._ ) and it slipped so guilelessly from him, without any aforethought or intent, that he had to wonder at the looseness of his morality sometimes. But it wasn't a complete lie. It wasn't the complete truth, granted, but it was close enough after a fashion.

And it worked. People were keen to talk about their serious amateur hobby. Were keen to hear some recount from a person who'd been in contact with a person who'd maybe been in touch with Ness.

Spindly, tricky, compulsive little things, were obsessions, especially to an outsider, and Sam had no qualms about pandering those obsessions, playing his part as the grandson of someone who'd met Ness to feed those fixations with a little more fertiliser. He had to remind himself more than once, he was verging on an obsession of his own, this quest he'd set up for himself, to track down a phantom image that may well not even ever have existed anywhere other than the mind of crazed fan.

His plethora of phone calls and emails yielded results at last, and from the list of likely beholders he managed to whittle it down to the most obvious candidate and booked himself an appointment to trawl through their picture archives. He waited till his and Dean's occasional, ask no questions I'll tell no lies, week off, and headed off in search of this picture, half eager and excited at the prospect of finding it (if _it_ even existed), half dreading what that might mean in terms of prophesies and free will if he did.

It was midway through his third day of trawling, with gritty eyes and a stiff neck, sat in a dusty and antiquated basement research office, that the image came up on the screen, and it took a moment for Sam to realise that he'd found what, _who_ , he'd been searching for.

Dean….

 _t.b.c._

 _Thank you for reading this far._

 _Will be updated with Part II very soon (next week at the latest, just attempting a final edit)_


	2. Chapter 2

**AN:** _Thank you to DearHart, MicheleChadwick and missingmikey, for the reviews and follow, and a pre-emptive thanks to anyone else out there who will ever read, like or comment on this. I've been struggling with writing and other things, so the support for this one (and other stories) has been really really appreciated. Thank you._

* * *

 **Part II**

There he was.

Dean.

Grainy, ever so slightly blurred, not fully in focus. But unmistakably Dean.

And it threw Sam in a way he hadn't been prepared for.

Because there was Dean, in 1944, before either of them were even _conceived_ , standing there next to Ness like he belonged nowhere else.

And suddenly it was like the air had been sucked from the room and as he sat there all alone, for a moment Sam couldn't breathe. He'd been so focussed, so _obsessed_ with finding a picture, half so sure it didn't even exist, half afraid that it might, that he'd not considered the other impact of actually finding it. Nothing to do with any fanfiction or prophecy, but more with the complete reality of the fact that it had happened. That Dean had been _that_ far away, somehow, in an absurd sort of way, a distance that seemed even further than death had ever taken him in the past. But seeing it there, seeing _Dean_ there, hard copy proof, it made it all real somehow in a way it really hadn't been before.

His reaction was irrational and he knew it of course, because they'd both lived through that case. But he could no more unclench his heart at the sight of that image than he could prevent himself from drawing breath as if he were drowning. Because, absurd as it was, until that moment, sat in that dusty basement, trawling through endless reams of blurred throwaway photos, until that very precise moment that Sam was staring at his brother's image on the screen, it had somehow not been real. The reality of just how far Dean had truly been from him, of how close Sam had come to losing him, again, it hadn't been real at all.

When it had happened, Sam had been completely focussed on getting Dean back, running on adrenaline to stave off the panic and dread which he'd refused to let take hold; he hadn't taken time to consider or think or feel anything else. Even when Jody had forced him to rest, he hadn't. Then after the event, when Dean was back, he'd just been glad that Dean was back, relieved beyond measure, and hadn't wanted to dwell on just how close a call that had been.

And for his part, when Dean had returned he'd seen Bobby's research, all the boxes Sam had asked Jody to bring over, all scattered and half open in the living room, and he'd darkened at that. Understandably. The loss would stay raw for a while, Sam knew.

So they'd never had a chance to talk about it, what with Dean being so tight lipped and keeping his emotions buried, particularly with Jody around, diving back headfirst into his Dick Roman vendetta with even more force than before, especially after seeing Bobby's things in the room, as if he'd needed any aides-mémoires for his own justifiable obsession at the time. And then it had just seemed pointless to bring it up later, because it was done and over with and they'd survived another close call and besides, they'd had much bigger things to focus on. So that had been that. Dean skipping through time, and not for the first or last time either, got glossed over and neither of them made any move to change that fact. Sam hadn't had time or cause to dwell on it in private either. Perhaps he hadn't really wanted to.

Except that now there was that photo of Dean staring back at him, the image even despite the transfer onto digital still showing the impossible decades, edges faded to sepia, the decrepit glancing touch of time and decay on the original coming through so clearly as the pixels captured flaws as facsimile, and it all hit Sam in an instant. The distance Dean had gone, the very real possibility that he may not have ever come back. The ease with which Dean had taken it all, even in that letter he'd sent, which now that Sam recalled it, had been so succinct. Detached and cold almost, and it made him feel a little sick inside to think that potentially _that_ could have been the last time his brother would have ever 'spoken' to him and that there had been barely any real warmth or significance there. Had only been a few lines in fact, and the very real threat of never seeing Sam ever again had inspired Dean to sign off with nothing more poignant or heartfelt than ' _Take care of yourself Sam_ '.

Not even Sammy.

He swallowed, unable to take his eyes off the image, feeling unsettled and weak to his core. It was the life they lived, and Sam had lost and recovered Dean enough times over the years that he could have shrugged this instance aside with similar avoidance as he'd initially done, after the original fact. But now, he couldn't, he didn't want to. He had privacy, he had time, and some perverse part of him wanted to indulge the reality that could have been because for some reason it felt important. He had to understand the magnitude of the risks they took. He did take his brother for granted at times, he did get annoyed and angry and resentful. It wasn't malicious, it was just brotherly. And whenever he lost Dean the world was over, and whenever he found Dean, all was well in the world again, for a fraction of a second at least, until the next time, and the next time, but none of it ever really sunk in did it? That he could lose Dean forever, it never sunk in, because there was never any proof, apart from the emotional, that something traumatic and potentially life ending had ever really happened.

Even a dead body had never been proof. Even a black smattering of ooze had never, really, been proof. Somehow, none of it had ever felt real, because a dead Dean was a Dean who had always come back. A dead Dean, cold and lifeless in his arms, whether from a tricksters guile or some other malice, had somehow and so far, always come back. A dead Dean was a Dean that Sam could resuscitate, somehow. Where others would see a corpse, Sam would still always see hope, not loss, that he could still bring him back, because he had the shell, he just had to retrieve the soul. And when he did, whenever he got his brother back, all evidence of Dean's ever having left in the first place was all vanished and gone and therefore utterly ignorable.

But this had been different. This time Dean hadn't died, and somewhere in the pit of his gut, Sam had known that could mean that Dean might not have ever come back. This time, there had been no body to mourn over, to carry back to safety, to bring back to life. No inanimate face, skin cold and dead to his touch, for him to hold and weep over. No. No this time Dean had been alive, so there was no bringing him back from the dead. Dean had been alive and unhurt and seemingly lost forever, decades away, beyond his reach, and that had felt unbearable.

So perhaps he'd pretended it had never happened because that particular possibility, that there were circumstances in which Dean could just be gone and taken from him forever, they were too unbearable to consider.

Except that now here was proof. Hard, concrete, irrefutable, proof. Evidence of just how far Dean had gone, of just how close Sam had come to losing him.

And as he stared at the picture, the reality of it all fell on him one brick at a time, each one burying and breaking him a little more as it hit.

The image was mesmerising and somehow, despite the horrible reality that _could_ have been had they been off by even a second, as he stared at Dean he found himself smiling despite the awful magnitude of the 'what if's' and the 'could have been's'.

Because it was Dean. Smug, cocky, arrogant, selfless Dean. In 1944… In a suit… With a Tommy gun… With Ness.

Dean.

His brother looked good in the tailored suit; Sam had never really seen Dean look that smart, not even in their federal getup. He doubted he could ever get Dean into an outfit like that in this day and age. But it fit the time, it fit the era, and it fit Dean in a weird way. He wore it with a swagger that was unmistakable, even in the stillness of a photo. There was a keenness in Dean's eyes, one Sam recognised seeing on his brother on hunts; a sort of sharpness, like a predator. Hungry. But that look was superseded by an expression of pure joy, the cause of which was the Tommy gun which Ness was handing over and which Dean was cradling and examining as though it were made of diamonds and gold (or perhaps, given that it _was_ Dean after all, burgers and doughnuts; Sam wasn't entirely convinced his brother wouldn't rate food more precious than gems and metals). Sam couldn't help smiling at the look Dean wore. As ever, his brother's face carried emotions so vividly, they could fill the room with whatever he felt, good or bad. Sam was glad that this photo he'd finally found had captured some of that unbridled joy that his brother could find from the simplest little things.

He turned his attention to Ness, who he hadn't even really noticed so far. The man was younger than Sam would have thought, but looked stern somehow, clean cut and taller than he'd imagined. He was looking at Dean, and there was a slight smile on his face. It was actually a good photo of Ness, obviously since he'd been the one the photographer at the time had been focused on. And despite the distance and the candid nature of it, it was as sharply focussed an image as Sam supposed you could have gotten at the time. It had captured Ness' features well, capturing something of his demeanour and his mood too somehow. He seemed… bemused? Clearly there was something that had him supressing a smile, because despite the stern official mask, there was a hint of a smile coming through. He was amused it seemed by Dean's boyish delight, but there was something more there. Pride perhaps? Would that be the right word? Or, no…. respect. That was it. It felt strange to attribute that to this stranger but as soon as Sam thought it, it seemed to fit. He could see some kind of approval and respect in Ness' features, in his whole bearing actually, and once he'd labelled the emotion, it didn't surprise him to see it there at all. If Ness was a great crime fighter, a great hunter, of course he would recognise greatness when he met it. And Dean was by far the greatest hunter Sam had ever known.

Sam liked that, he realised, seeing someone else recognise that strength and skill in his brother, seeing someone acknowledge and appreciate it. He liked that photo a lot, the more he looked at it, despite the initial melodrama it had caused within him, which was now slowly melting and ebbing away to something far better.

They looked like comrades, partners. Classy, cape-less crusaders.

He would have continued sitting there, staring at the screen, lost in that image, had the archive owner not walked in, managing to get close before Sam registered his approach.

"Found what you were after then?" He chuckled, making no other comment about the expression on Sam's face as he made his way over to look over Sam's shoulder. "Oh that's a good one." The man said, leaning in to peer at the screen. "And that's yer grand-pappy you say? I can see the resemblance."

Sam didn't comment, only smiling politely and vaguely nodding. The man looked at him. "He must've been a good officer to have gotten that close to Eliot." Apparently if you were a fan, it was acceptable to be on a first name basis with Ness. "Only the very best ever got to work that close with Eliot." He leaned in closer to the screen, shifting his glasses lower to peer at the image. "Well I'll be damned!"

"What?" Sam asked, wondering what he'd missed.

"That Tommy gun, unless I'm mistaken, and I'm sure I ain't, that's Eliot's personal gun. I didn't think he'd ever let anyone else ever use it. Boy!" The man whistled, straightening up. "Your grand-pappy must've been something mighty special to have gotten that."

He waited expectantly, and after a pause Sam realised that the elderly man wanted to hear stories about him, about the grandfather he assumed was in the picture. So Sam told him what he thought the man wanted to hear, regaled him with a story of the 'case', substituting supernatural details with regular crime fighting ones, made the whole thing seem like a regular episode from the untouchables on which his 'Grand-Pappy' and Ness had converged, and the elderly man soaked up every word, mesmerised. He seemed so genuinely enthralled and gratified that it even soothed most of Sam's guilt about fabricating such an elaborate pseudo-lie.

At the end of it, even Sam began to half believe what he'd told him. The man who'd pulled up a chair, sat back, seeming wrung out from the emotion Sam's tale had elicited.

"No wonder you're so proud of him." He said, staring at the screen again while he absentmindedly cleaned his glasses with a handkerchief.

"What?" Sam asked, taken aback. He wouldn't say he felt anything in particular about Ness, certainly not pride. He was indifferent if anything.

"Your grand-pappy, no wonder you're so proud of him." The man clarified, not noticing Sam's reaction. "Tell you the truth, I heard it in your voice when you called up and asked to see the archives. I wish I could've known him, sounds like quite the character. Looks it too." He laughed lightly as he replaced his glasses and looked back at the picture. "You can see it in his face… People back then, life back then, it was black and white. You were either good and doing the right thing or you were bad and the good ones chased you down. Not like it is now, no clear line between good an' bad, monsters hiding away behind lawyers and tape…. No, I can see goodness shining right out of them two there. You see it? It's the way Eliot looks at him, he didn't look like that at most people I can tell you that for nothing. You should be proud."

Sam swallowed down at the absurd emotions rising up in him and turned his gaze back to the screen, if only to avoid the man's scrutiny.

"Ain't no shame in being proud of the best of us." The man said, finally sensing some of Sam's unease. "Ain't no shame at all."

Sam nodded, staring back at his brother's face, before clearing his throat and asking for a copy of the photo.

It took him the rest of the afternoon to get the copy to a digital studio, to get it cleared up and sharpened, and then till the next morning to finally collect the print. While he loitered on that initial afternoon, hoping they would process it quicker if he stayed in view, he'd been kindly pointed to the direction of a local antique store where, despite his initial misgivings, he'd managed to find a picture frame; simple and plain, but from the 1940's and he'd had to buy it.

He'd driven home, having not wrapped the gift, because he was sure he'd unwrap it himself just to look at it again. And he'd held on to it, hidden it away, waiting patiently for the right time to give it to Dean. Not his Birthday, or Christmas, because he remembered that much from the fanfiction at least, those two days repeatedly mentioned towards the end of the story like some bizarre indecisive literary mantra;

Christmas or Birthday? Christmas or Birthday? Christmas or Birthday?

So he knew as long as he avoided either of those days, he'd have managed to steer well clear of whatever the author had intended, whatever the author had preordained, and thus proving that it was absolutely not prophetic or preordained in any way, shape or form.

So he waited. Christmas came and went. Dean's birthday came and went. And then finally, _finally_ , on a day which had somehow just felt like the right day for no reason he could have identified, he gave Dean the gift, wrapped in brown paper now, watching nervously as he awaited Dean's reaction.

Dean had put his beer down slowly when Sam had held it out to him, had accepted the proffered item after a hesitant pause, a slight caginess on his face borne from brotherly pranks of days gone by, and not masked at all as he gave his brother a look. He'd asked Sam 'what's this?' and Sam had simply shrugged and said it was just something that had occurred to him and just shut up and open it. Dean had squinted his eyes suspiciously, still obviously not buying that Sam would get him an impromptu gift, but then Sam had huffed, slightly annoyed, so Dean had shrugged, like he didn't care, and had ripped the paper off.

His jaw dropped a second after he saw what it was exactly he was holding. He looked up at Sam who was squirming, before looking back down at the photo in his hand.

"… Sammy," He began, all guile and mistrust vanished in an instant. "Where….? Where'd you _get_ this?... I mean Hell!" And he looked up again briefly. "How'd you even _think_ to get it?"

But Sam didn't have a chance to come up with some ridiculous excuse because Dean was staring at the photo again, and he was beaming. Literally beaming, from ear to ear, a smile so dazzling that Sam forgot everything he was worried about in an instant and grinned back, unable to resist.

"Sammy this is…." Dean said, breathlessly, for once completely lost for words, for once no smirk or smart ass comeback screening his genuine, uninhibited, joy. "This is… wow!"

Sam's grin grew wider as he came to stand next to his brother and they both looked at the picture. "Yeah, it's not bad." He allowed, smiling openly.

"Not bad? Are you kidding me?! It's friggin' awesome! Sammy where'd you get this?"

That question again, not so rhetorical after all, and Sam's smile faltered. Damn it! He mentally cursed, wondering briefly whether the fanfiction had provided a reasonable answer. But Dean was waiting, staring at him, expectant and happy all rolled into one and Sam simply shrugged.

"Remember I was in Cleveland a few months back?" Sam fielded, but Dean gave a blank stare and Sam rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I went to the archives there and they had stuff on Ness and well… Look does it matter?"

Dean stared at him blankly for a beat more before responding. "You mean you spent your _one_ week off going to a _museum_?" And he sounded downright disgusted, much to Sam's annoyance.

"It wasn't a museum, it was an archi–" Sam began defensively, embarrassed and a little self-conscious, but then stopped with an abrupt frown the instant he saw Dean's accusatory eyebrow arching even higher. "Look whatever dude, do you like it or not?"

"Dude." The playful annoyance left Dean's face instantly as he looked at the photo again, seeming breathless with wonder. "I love it. It's… Sammy, thank you."

It was one of those rare moments in the brothers' lives when their emotions were warm and inspired by a genuine tenderness, rather than a life ending catastrophe and neither was quite comfortable with it, not quite sure how they were supposed to react if it didn't involve battling some evil monster, telling the other to hold on, to not die, etc. etc.. Sam broke it first, clearing his throat and reaching for a beer.

"So," He began, sitting down and waiting for Dean to do the same. "What was it like? Being back there, with Ness. What was _he_ like?"

They spent the rest of the evening with Dean telling Sam in minute detail every element of his time with Ness, all the things Sam had never heard before, because they'd never brought it up before. In all honesty, Sam didn't think there could have been that much to tell, but trust Dean to remember everything. _Everything_ ; the cars, the whisky, the women, the food, the clothes, the guns. Especially Ness' Tommy gun (' _Sammy, oh Sammy, that thing…. Imagine if Baby and the grenade launcher had a kid… yeah OK maybe not…. Oh but you should've heard it! Man, that thing purred to life. Why'd they stop makin' those? We need to get one those!_ ").

And, much to Sam's relief, they never even came close again to the subject of how or why that gift had been acquired in the first place, Dean seeming satisfied and not caring about the details of it.

Sam listened, asking questions here and there, but for the most part let Dean rave on unhindered about it all. Every now and then however, Sam would find himself just smiling, aware of how his brother's happiness made him feel, aware of how glad he was that Dean was still alive and with him. Grateful for everything, even perhaps that ridiculous story that had started it all. As they finally turned in for the night, he knew Dean would still be staring at that picture, still grinning as he finished off the last of his beer, and it made Sam smile again.

It didn't matter what that story had been about, what it had said, he knew he'd changed enough of things to make this version his own. And no matter how many words it had encompassed, none of them could have captured what he felt right then.

A picture really could paint a thousand words, but a 1000 or none at all, it wouldn't matter; there just weren't enough words anywhere to express how happy, how content and complete, the look on Dean's face had made Sam feel.

As he closed his eyes, he let it go, knowing he'd never be able to find the story again. Knowing it didn't really matter anyway, because this version was his own and he didn't need a prophecy to tell him that he'd made Dean happy. And that, to Sam, was the only version that would ever really matter in the end.

 _The End._

 _Thank you for reading_


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